Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar - VCUQ, Doha - Gallery news: The Third Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium,

The Third Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium, (28.10.2009)

The Third Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium to Examine Color in Islamic Art and Culture

Doha, Qatar - Scholars from around the world will explore the many uses of color in Islamic art and culture during the Third Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art on November 2 - 4 in Cordoba, Spain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an important center of Islamic art and architecture.

"And Diverse Are Their Hues: Color in Islamic Art and Culture" features 13 speakers from the Middle East, Europe, Australia and the United States with topics spanning the medieval to the modern and covering a range of disciplines, featuring experts in art, architecture, literature and philosophy.

The symposium is co-sponsored by the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar and the Qatar Foundation. Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, shared holders of the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at VCU, are the organizers and keynote speakers. Fifteen fellows, ranging from graduate students to octogenarians, will receive full funding to attend the symposium.

"And Diverse Are Their Hues" focuses on the topic of color. Speakers will address the role of color in manuscripts, carpets, ceramics, buildings, medieval optics, mysticism and gardens. "We chose color as the focus of this year's symposium because it is one of the most salient features of Islamic art, although it is rarely discussed," Bloom said. "Everyone comments on the colorful qualities of Islamic art, but they rarely look deeper at them. For example, medieval Muslims did not identify the same colors in the rainbow that we see today." Their keynote address will introduce the audience to many of the issues that other speakers will develop over the following two days.

The 12 papers to be submitted during the symposium include: Ceramics In or On the Building? The Relationships of Patrons, Architecture and the Consumer in the Development of Pottery and Tilework by Bernard O'Kane, Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, American University in Cairo; The Role of Economics, Geography and Tradition in the Artist's Choice of Colors for Manuscript Painting by Cheryl Porter Deputy Director, Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation & Dar al-Kutub Manuscript Project in Cairo, Egypt; Some Observations on Color in Carpets by Jon Thompson, Associate, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford; "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues": Depictions of Majn?n in Persian Illustrated Manuscripts by Julie Scott Meisami, an Independent Scholar; Blue behind Gold: the Inscription of the Dome of the Rock and its Relatives by Lawrence Nees, Professor of Art History, University of Delaware; Why My Name is Red: "Ahmar," "Surkh" and "Kirmizi" in the History of Islamic Art by Marianna Shreve Simpson, Independent Scholar, Baltimore; "The Battle of Colors": Colors and Their Meaning in the Search for Political Legitimacy in the Islamic West by Maribel Fierro, Research Professor, CSIC (Center for Human and Social Sciences of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) in Madrid; "Threads of Many Colors": Islam, America, and the Visual Culture of Conquest by Michael J. Schreffler, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University;

Colors of Power and Piety in Rasulid Yemen by Noha Sadek, Independent Scholar; "Designs always Polychromed or Gilded": the Aesthetics of Color in the Alhambra by Olga Bush, Visiting Assistant Professor, Art History Department, Vassar College, Color, Symbolism, and the Mystic Quest: the Spiritual Exegesis of Color in Sufism by Samir Mahmoud, Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge and The Hues of Paradise - Examining Color Design Layout in the Persian Garden by Manu P. Sobti, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Mohammad Gharipour Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

Blair and Bloom, the authors of more than a dozen books, are among the leading scholars of Islamic art in the world. "We're on the cusp of something exciting in Islamic art," Blair said. "It's an encouraging shift. Many buildings and works of art have now been examined. It's time to look beyond the individual works and begin to explore the arts of the Islamic lands thematically."

Cordoba, a city of approximately 350,000 in Andalusia in southern Spain, served as the capital of Muslim Spain in the Middle Ages and contains many significant monuments of Islamic art and architecture, such as the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the ruins of Medina Azahara, a 10th-century palace just outside of the city. The city's Archaeological Museum also houses an exemplary collection of local antiquities.

Previous symposia were held in Richmond, USA in 2004 and in Doha in 2007. The proceedings of the 2007 symposium have just been published by Yale University Press under the title, "Rivers of Paradise: Water in Islamic Art and Culture."

For this year's schedule, a complete list of speakers and registration, as well as information about travel and lodging options, please visit the symposium website, http://www.islamicartdoha.org/.

About VCU and the VCU Medical Center
Virginia Commonwealth University is the largest university in Virginia and ranks among the top 100 universities in the country in sponsored research. Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, VCU enrolls 32,000 students in 205 certificate and degree programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Sixty-five of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU's 15 schools and one college. MCV Hospitals and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University compose the VCU Medical Center, one of the nation's leading academic medical centers. For more, see www.vcu.edu.

About Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar:
Established in the US in 1838 and in Qatar in 1998, Virginia Commonwealth University offers students from all over the world the opportunity to earn Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in fashion, graphic, interior design and painting & printmaking and a Master of Fine Arts degree in design studies. A team of highly skilled professors provide rigorous curricula that prepare students to assume leadership roles in the professional design field of their choice. VCUQatar regularly organizes and hosts exhibitions, gallery events, world-class conferences and holds an annual fashion show. The documentary entitled "VCUQatar", which highlighted the 10 year anniversary of Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar's rich history and the education the students are receiving, won a Capital Emmy at the 51st Emmy Awards in April 2009. VCUQatar is supported and funded by the Qatar Foundation. For more information please visit www.qatar.vcu.edu

About Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development
Founded in 1995 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, and chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned, Qatar Foundation is a private, non-profit organization committed to the principle that a nation's greatest natural resource is its people. The headquarters of Qatar Foundation are located within its flagship project, Education City, a fourteen million square-meter campus which hosts numerous progressive learning institutions and centers of research, including branch campuses of six of the world's leading universities, plus a cutting-edge research and development center. Qatar Foundation also works to enhance the quality of life in Qatar by investing in community health and development.
For more information please visit: http://www.qf.org.qa

Images:
Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, organizers and keynote speakers of the IAS presenting a lecture at VCUQatar

Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, organizers and keynote speakers of the IAS during the Rivers of Paradise symposium conference